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Ubers Player Spotlight is the place where I interview notable and respected players from Ubers, the tier where the fiercest monsters combat and exert apocalyptic force. People I choose to interview are the elite players who excel at taming the strongest monsters and have been consistent throughout tournaments and is well respected by the community.

I am open to suggestions (DMDW#8155) about the players that can be interviewed, but please keep in mind that suggested players are subjects to review by me and Ubers moderation team. With that out of the way...

That would be scyther. I honestly don't know why it's my favorite, but I love its design.

Overview:

I'm a 16 year old student who has many hobbies, most notably playing a couple of instruments and playing football. And of course, I also like playing video games.

What is your name's origin?

It's actually really simple and stupid. The first time I logged in on PS I wanted to use a Gary Oak themed team, but that name was taken, so I just added an A (Garay is actually a kinda common last name where I live)

What made you start playing Pokémon?

I don't remember it because I was 2 or 3 years old, but my parents bought me a GBA and the game Pokémon Blue. And well, I liked it and kept playing the other games.

What inspired you to play Ubers?

When SM came out, I wanted to try solgaleo and lunala, so I made a couple of teams and started playing on ladder. Since NU wasn't out yet, I kept playing ubers, and I signed up for a seasonal and liked it. That's basically it.

What is your favorite generation of Ubers?

I love oras ubers, especially arceus-rock and latios are my favs to use.

What is your favorite playstyle?

Anyone who's ever seen me play knows that I love bulky offense, mostly because if played well, a good BO team gives you room to be aggresive outplay the majority of matchups, while also having a decent defensive backbone to be able to pivot around opposing threats.

What is your opinion on Gothitelle & Gothorita suspect?

I was in favor of banning goth sisters, because bulkier teams were forced to run certain sub-optimal mons not to be too weak to goth, or they'd straight up lose on team preview. But there are interesting arguments against banning them, for example some people said that if they got banned, offense and BO would become worse playstyles and ubers would become balanced vs balanced and stall all the time, making it passive.

Are there any elements of the metagame that you deem unhealthy?

Apart from what I said earlier, I'd say swagger is unhealthy. It doesn't do anything good for the meta, it just makes some teams lose to marsh just because of confusion hax.

Iry vs Leru for UPL semifinals. I made Leru's team long before that game (although I didn't know he'd use it) and all the sets worked as they were supposed to.

How was the experience in UPL with Choice Bandits?

It was a great experience, I knew most of our teammates beforehand but I liked everyone there, it was a shame we couldn't win but I had a lot of fun.

What new users or players in Ubers do you look up to?

I don't really look up to anyone new, aside from Zesty43, who I think will do well in snake because he's a solid and creative player.

What are your advices for new players getting into Ubers?

Ladder is a waste of time. It will only give you a false impression of what the meta is like. I'd sign up for seasonals and watch high level games, and start building standard stuff until you become more confident in your building abilities.

What do you say about some previous interviewees considering you as one of the better players of USM?

The Ubers player pool is kind of shallow at the moment, so I guess you could say that I'm one of the best. But I wouldn't rank myself higher tan top 7 or so.

Congratulations on getting drafted for Snake Draft! How do you feel about an event as a whole?

Last snake was the best tour I've ever been in, 95% because of my teammates. I really hope it's the same this time, and if I can end up with a good record, that's perfect. Regarding the format, I like it more than last year's, although it might seem kind of confusing at the beginning.

ORAS team I made for UPL. I wanted to use latios+waterceus, a core I really liked. I don't think there's a need to explain why I added pdon, spdef roar because I didn't have another xern check at the time. Then I added mega gengar, which could trap stuff that was annoying like ferro and benefit from burns and toxics. It also acts as a nice revenge killer vs HO, trapping stuff like darkrai and ekiller. To round out the defensive core, klefki acts as a nice dark/dragon/fairy resist, provides spikes and spreads status for mega gengar. For the last slot, I opted for CB Ray since I needed a wallbreaker and priority (the team is somewhat slow), and I really like that set.

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Thank you Garay oak for spending the time to answer the questions! Feel free to ask other questions in this thread!​

Non-memes:
Who do you think deserved to be drafted in Snake draft and who should be in potentially SPL? Likewise with UPL - who do you see getting drafted this year that wasn't drafted, and do you plan on playing/managing?
What other metas are you interested in outside of Ubers and NU?
Any mons you think are underrated as of now and have potential to do well in the meta soon? And the other way around - mons that are overrated and will fall out of favour soon?
What's your thought process with building?

I think every ubers player that got drafted deserves a spot in snake. If they deserve a spot in SPL or not will depend on how they play in snake imo (including myself). Also, I didn't follow the draft at all, but I don't remember anyone who should've been bought for ubers and didn't get picked.

That's a hard question to answer rn because I'm sure there will be more than one hidden talent for next year, but iirc the recent seasonal winner Royal1604 didn't get bought so yeah. As for me, I will play next UPL, since I have no intention to manage.

Thanks! As of building, it depends on the playstyle, but I usually start with a mon ir a core I wanna use and then try to cover everything defensively (via walling or revenge killing) and have a way to beat every playstyle (I especially focus on stall because if you don't think about it you might end up building a team that has no chance beating it).

As I said earlier, snake is the most fun tour I've been in. Wcop was fine too, but we had some issues and didn't make it to playoffs (faltabas tú :p). I don't expect this snake to be as good but we shall see.